My problem is they no longer make brick boxes anymore, or at least ones people would buy. 3-5 years ago you could get a 1,000 piece brick box for $20. Now for $30 you get 400 pieces, that’s a ripoff! LEGO has lost it in their that department.

The thing about this ad is its target audience.
Being in a Homemaker magazine, it’s obviously aimed at mothers, because they’re most often the people who buy sets for their kids.
LEGO advertising these days is aimed at the kids themselves, who are meant to nag their parents to get them the latest set, which means that if advertising appeals to these family values then LEGO will get no-where. They must advertise the sets and make them look exciting.

I think LEGO should advertise the playability of sets to kids, while perhaps supplementing this with ads aimed at parents (similar to this one but modernised) to advertise the creativity of LEGO. This will appeal to both groups, and will help parents of girls become aware of the possibilities of LEGO that they hadn’t considered before.

Combining a more neutrally themed range of sets (there are already many sets which could appeal to both boys and girls), parent-aimed advertising and more focus on creative play in the instructions (such as alternative models) could make LEGO seen as a more gender-balanced and valuable toy.

I think the shift from ‘imagine’ to ‘play’ has been synonymous with the mass differentiation between boy’s toys and girl’s toys. Market forces bigger than TLG were to blame, you can’t blame them for going along. I’d love it if Lego returned to a more gender neutral marketing strategy, but I think it’s just too late in the game for that.

Most MOCs use the “modern pieces”, and everyone seems happy with them. Kids like them too. Buy a bucket of bricks and a set or two, and everyone is happy.

Besides, TLG has been making “sets” for decades now.

But seriously, I too have reluctance accepting the action focus nowdays, and bruce n h said it well in his post. Still, with LEGO, I’ll take the overwhelming amount of good with the bad. I’d much rather be blowing my money on LEGO than anything else on the toy shelf when it comes to my kids, or myself. Other toy companies are far less insightful when it comes to advertising or product. I’m proud to see my kids make that pose too, when they make something original, usually from the cheap grab-bags of bricks from the LEGO store, because I’ll confess, we all like to keep our sets together in my family.

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I think the whole problem is that there has been a sea change at TLC over the past 5-10 years, best summed up in the change of slogans a year or so ago from “Just imagine . . . “, to “Play on!”

“Just Imagine … ” focuses on the building. “Play on!” focuses on ‘excitement’.

“Just Imagine … ” gives us many figs and lets the child invent the story line. “Play on!” spoon feeds a story line to the kids, enforcing not just who is the good fig and who is the bad fig, but also their exact story line. Sometimes this is based on a license.

“Just Imagine … ” can use basic bricks. “Play on!” means you need all sorts of overspeciallized parts.

“Just Imagine …” involves lots of pieces and takes time to build the main model. “Play on!” only needs a few big molded parts, because the important part is to get past the building process to start “playing”.

“Just Imagine …” would put pictures on the back of boxes of alternate models. “Play on!” often just has pictures of the main model in “action” shots.

“Just Imagine …” brought us great themes. “Play on!” wastes TLC’s attention on things like video games, Galidor, the various Sports lines, etc.

“Just Imagine …” encourages the child to grow and learn as they stretch themselves. “Play on!” merely attempts to grab market share from video games.

“Just Imagine … ” = classic castle. “Play on!” = really colorful garbage.

Okay, it’s not all bleak. There are movements at TLC that fit the “Just Imagine …” mindset–most notably the Designer line and some of the things that grew out of LEGO Direct (bulk bricks, MOC line, etc), that new house set that recently showed up in European catalogs (when will that hit the US?). Our main problem is that KK2 falls right in the middle of the “Play on!” part of TLC.
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In the more recent years we have seen both good and bad movements from LEGO in this regard. For the bad, let’s remember a while back when LEGO asked for ideas for Play Themes:
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2008/12/17/lego-designers-want-our-imput-on-future-play-themes/
The key line in that for me was: “Usually the stories are conflict-based (good vs. bad) and revolve around treasures or missions.” Completely the opposite of the “Just imageine…” mindset. Of course, as I noted 5 years ago, there are very positive things like LEGO Factory, the whole Cafe Corner line and the Creator series. However, aside from Creator, these are generally aimed at the adults, not the kids. For kids we get dreck that stifles the imagination (even when the sets themselves are good ones).

Bruce

Maybe I’m wrong and all the shooty missiles and action gimmicks have worked to sell more sets, but every spring loaded shooty missile takes the place of several real LEGO bricks, and IMO the set is lesser for it.

I also hate seeing Bionicle parts in System sets. It makes the set look like LEGO has been mixed with some other toy. Yuck.

I still have most of the pieces from that set :-)